“I don’t know that she’s right for you, Dan” I said after hearing about his new love interest, Lauren.
“Yeh,” he said, “But she has anal beads.”
Social psychology teaches the Social Exchange Theory, which states that the sustainability of a relationship can be understood through mathematical terms. The equation takes the benefits of the relationship minus the costs, minus the level of how awesome you expect the relationship to be, minus how likely you think it is that you can find someone better, plus how much investment you’ve already put into the relationship. So it comes out looking like this:
(Benefits - Costs – Expectations) – Likelihood for better alternatives + Investments= commitment.
Essentially, what this means is that you only like a relationship if it has more benefits than costs, and if it meets your personal expectations of what a relationship should be. And you will stay in that relationship so long as there’s no one better around to hook up with, and also if you’ve already invested a lot in the relationship. …Simple. So we decided to apply it to Dan’s situation.
Anal Beads: Benefits = +1
“And she gives good head.”
+1
“But her dog friended me on Facebook.”
-1
“And then wrote ‘I want to lick you all over!’ on my wall…”
“Dude. Maybe you should date her dog.”
“She’s actually really cool though. Like, even though she thought Ayn Rand was a kind of cheese, she likes all the same music I do.”
“So she’s into Britney?”
“Yea. And we have a lot of fun.”
“Right, you mentioned the anal beads.”
Expectations: Exceeded.
“I’m taking her out again on Friday but, I don’t know. I’m still kinda hoping something will happen with Katie.”
Katie was the girl from his Bio class he’d been chatting with on Facebook. He was working his way up to asking for a phone number.
So here we had:
(Good head + Sex toys) – (Dog on Facebook) + (Exceeded expectations) – (Katie from Bio) + (Time + Cost of Dinner) = Casual Hook Up
We crunched the numbers and decided that, as enticing as Lauren was, Katie’s occasional Facebook chats meant much too much to him to get involved in anything too serious. We liked the idea of an equation and tried to see if we could apply mathematics further. So we came up with a new equation to determine the status of a relationship. Thus, we had created a new branch of math: Alge-bro. Our equation was:
Interest level + circumstances (substances) + intimacy level + medium of communication – time it takes them to respond = fate of relationship
Here are some sample problems:
Want to date her + Too scared to talk to her + Facebook chat – she doesn’t respond = You are a Facebook creeper
Want a relationship + Met at a bar + alcohol + skirt so short you can see her vagina + made out + in person + immediately = one night stand
Wanna bang her + Booty call(alcohol)+ text message – never responded = Person you awkwardly avoid tomorrow
Want to date her + Text her + While sober + Quick response + Smiley face = Success
